The other day I was in chat and made the following statement:  “Hunters are like Britney Spears CDs–everyone has one, but few want to admit it.”  I really like being a hunter, but there are a lot of BAD hunters out there that make getting into PUGs a more interesting experience.  The trick of the thing is that you, as a hunter, have a lot to manage.  Over my next several posts, I’m going to talk about some good and bad habits for hunters in raiding.  Today’s topic is threat (or aggro or rage or hate or whatever you call it–here, we call it threat).

Watch your threat!

As a DPS class, you’re always in the mix as far as threat is concerned.  If you’re a survival hunter, for example, while Lock and Load  may be super great for your DPS, it may also spell your doom if you’re already competing with the tank for top dog on the threat meter.  Your two tools (besides just stopping your dps) are Misdirection and Feign Death . Misdirection is an extremely powerful tool, and we don’t use it enough honestly. It’s also getting a really nice update in 3.3, so frankly, there will be no excuse for not using it then.  Some ways to use Misdirection are:

• Misdirect to the tank as the pull begins and then use your three biggest threat-generating shots on the first target to help the tank build threat (and keep you from building it).
• Misdirect to the tank and then use Multi Shot to add threat from a mob to the tank (useful in situations where there are lots of enemies for the tank to corral–like in the last pulls in VH or in Onyxia, though honestly you have very little to do with the adds in Ony if you’re a hunter).
• Perform a misdirect pull, which is the same as 1 or 2, but the tank doesn’t hit first–you do.  The one thing to be careful with here is not to go to heavily into your rotation too soon, or you’ll throw the tank your early threat and then pull the mob right to you.
• Continue to misdirect throughout the fight, in order to avoid hitting #1 on a boss’ list.

Some things to avoid with Misdirection are:

• Do not attempt to use Distracting Shot with Misdirection.  It won’t transfer the threat to the tank, and you’ll die comically (as I did once on the Black Knight–hilarity ensued).
• Avoid using Explosive Shot with Misdirection.  The explosive ticks count as Misdirection hits, so you don’t transfer as much threat as you’d think.

As far as Misdirection goes, the only other thing I can think of is that one time I was in a five man group where our tank DC’d, but was still in that “run in place” mode.  We were in the middle of a pull at the time, so we were able to misdirect to him and keep him tanking, which avoided a wipe.  Not the best way to use MD, but not the worst either.  Also be sure that in a raid you’re misdirecting to the tank–anything else is counterproductive.

Feign death is your other excellent approach–it’s not just for avoiding the wipe penalty!  Feign death will work on nearly everything to wipe you off the threat table, but be sure to stay down for long enough–if you pop back up too fast, you may not erase your threat.  Also, Glyph of Feign Death is a good investment.

Well, that’s all for this post.  I hope this helps someone out.  When I was new to 5-manning and raiding, I didn’t really know how to effectively manage my threat, except to slow down.  That works OK, but these tactics ensure that you do that a whole lot less, so that you get invited to more content.